Former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar on Friday trained his guns on match referee Mike Procter of South Africa, saying that the ICC should haul him up for bungling.
MUMBAI: Former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar on Friday trained his guns on match referee Mike Procter of South Africa, saying that the ICC should haul him up for bungling the incident involving Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds during last month's Sydney Test.
Procter will have to do some answering to the ICC, said the chairman of the national selection committee while reacting to the three-Test ban on Harbhajan imposed by match referee Procter, which was later revoked by Appeals Commissioner John Hansen, who reduced it to a simple monetary penalty.
Vengsarkar was speaking to the media after launching the fifth edition of the Polycom 20-20 cricket fest for Corporates organised by Sportz Village.
Vengsarkar also recalled that this was not the first time the South African cricketer had failed to perform his duties properly, citing the Oval Test incident between England and Pakistan, that led to the first-ever forfeiture in Test cricket's history and the on-field spat between Glenn McGrath and West Indian batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan.
He felt that the Sydney experience rather than weakening the team had made them stronger.
Asked about his own experience, Vengsarkar said, "The Australians are known to be sledgers, but the best way we used to answer them was by performing on the field and I want the present players also to do the same."
Vengsarkar, praising the progress made by the Indian team on the ICC rankings table, also sounded optimistic that soon it would rise up to be number one Test team in the world.
Vengsarkar was also critical of Harbhajan Singh for abusing Symonds for which he was slapped a penalty of 50 per cent of his match fees.
"He's a fine bowler and has done well in the series. But whatever be the provocation (from Symonds) one should not use bad words on the field," he said.
The selection panel chief also cautioned temperamental pacer S Sreesanth to rein in his emotions during the one-day triangular series in Australia in view of recent happenings.
"He was bowling at a fiery pace for his team BPCL in a match here, clocking 145 kph. I hope he keeps his emotion under control in Australia," Vengsarkar said.
While rueing the injury sustained by R P Singh that has ruled him out of the one-day series, Vengsarkar praised bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad for the constantly improving display of gangling rookie Delhi pacer Ishant Sharma.
The chief selector was not too concerned about the run drought experienced in the Test series by one-day captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and said the script would be different in the one-day series.
"Dhoni has got acclimatised to the conditions and he will do well in the one-dayers," Vengsarkar said.
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